Zehnder Comfosystems

Built it tight? - The next step is: Ventilate it right.

The solution to making comfortable energy efficient homes, heat recovery ventilation (HRV), captures the heat energy from the exhaust air stream and returns it to the incoming air stream. The two air steams never touch each other. Only the heat energy is moved. It works the same in cold or warm conditions. If it's hot outside, the heat is kept outside. If it's cold outside, the heat is kept inside. It doesn't require force, or more energy than is used by refrigerator light bulb. It's just physics in action: Heat moves from hot to cold.

Heat recovery ventilation has been in use here in North America for the last 30 years. North American equipment available has been in the low to moderate performance range based on heat transfer efficency. The common problems with the mid-level equipment has been noise and performance. Once installed, a noisy unit is often turned off by the occupants to stop the continuous background noise. A poor heat transfer efficiency unit can work adequately in temperate conditions but will be uncomfortable during the warmest or coldest months by blowing hot or cold air over the occupants due to it's poor efficiency. When the sensible recovery efficiency (SRE) is high (85% - 93%), the incoming flow of air is the closest to the indoor temperature as possible. This means fresh air is flowing into the living environment within a comfortable range of the indoor temperature by extracting the energy from the exhaust stream being vented out of the home.

While HRV's have been slow to evolve in North America, the technology has been perfected in Europe over the last 15 years by the 100 yr old, $250 mil, Zehnder Group. Zehnder HRV’s arrived in North America in 2010 to service new high performance projects built to the German Passivhaus Standard - the most stringent building standard in world today. As the movement for energy efficiency expands to all homes, this simple method of heat and energy recovery ventilation easily moves with it.

It just becomes a question of quality. Quality is in the experience. Or the lack of experiencing noise or uncomfortable air.

For help with a Zehnder ComfoSystems project, just give us a call or email: (360) 866-8779 -or- info@smallplanetsupply.com

Use the full capacity of Zehnder ComfoSystems with the ComfoTube distribution system and design services by a Zehnder engineer.

A full Zehnder system is designed to replace the volume of the building enclosure with fresh air every three hours. The filtered fresh air is distributed through the Zehnder ComfoTube to each location without the use of trunk lines to ensure design flows are met for every room. The Zehnder ComfoWell Silencers reduce noise even at boost levels.